I am Julie Hickey.  I have lived in Chelmsford for 17 years.  I have 2 daughters;  Emma is a freshman at New York University and Abby is a junior at Chelmsford High School.  My husband and I have been married for 26 years and moved to Chelmsford when Emma was a year old and I was pregnant with Abby.  We were looking for a town where we could become part of a community and had excellent schools.  We also wanted a neighborhood where I could walk, where the kids could play in the street, and where there were lots of families. We found this all in Chelmsford. My husband Jim is a CPA with his own business in Tewksbury.  We met at Merrimack College where we both majored in accounting.  I do some work for him, and I do some bookkeeping, but mostly I am a mother.  I am also a very happy woman. I always
thought I would be a career woman and my children would be in day care, but after my first was born, I changed my mind. I have never regretted my decision to stay at home.  I have two great and happy children; I have a husband who notices and appreciates what I do all day and how much easier that makes his life. Living on one income can
be challenging sometimes, it requires him to work a lot of hours, but we have divided up the duties of our lives in a way that has made us all happy.  What is my favorite part of being a mother?  I guess that would be seeing the
proof of my efforts.  As I said earlier, I have two great kids.  They are good students; they are respectful and kind teenagers.  I have no doubt they will contribute positivity
to this world. What more could a mother ask for?  It has been a lot of work; I can’t count the number of times I have doubted myself and the number of tears of frustration I have shed in the past 18 years, but I can honestly say it has also given me great joy. So my favorite part of being a mother is that Emma and Abby are ours and that we get to parent them.